Thursday, 7 November 2013

Wandering Off by Jane Clarke

My best ideas often come when I wander off somewhere with nothing specific in mind. Here are three of my favourite wanders:

Letting the dog take me for a wander

Old dog pace is slow, with stops for joyous sniffs and rolls.

Wandering through old magazines

Thanks to poet Roger Stevens for introducing me to the delights of cutting and pasting random words, phrases and pictures and making surreal poems.

Wandering round a local place of interest

There are loads of interesting places, museums and art galleries where I live, but a supermarket or my local town, Deal, will do just as well, too.

Wandering around Dover Castle has given me ideas for three books - which I occasionally get invited to read in the awesome setting of the Great Tower.

I don't have a notebook by my side when I go off wandering- because that would make me think I had to have an idea, and the whole point of wandering is that it's pressure-free. But I often come back with something to add to my compost heap of ideas.

But even if I don't come back with anything to put in the notebooks, wandering off occasionally stops me stagnating - and makes me feel less guilty about the chocolate nibbling when I'm back at my desk.

Jane's currently polishing up three picture book texts for Nosy Crow. She's been having a lovely time wandering round Dover Castle, and doing some readings there over the autumn break, and Bramble has taken her for lots of walks. Jane's WebsiteJane's Facebook author page

17 comments:

Nice post, I agree about the therapeutic effect of wandering. Not having a dog anymore, (my wife's little cavvie popped his clogs a year or two back) , I find that being into photography is a good excuse to wander aimlessly here and there and get a bit of exersize. Just getting out of the house can free up the creative process wonderfully. I've stayed in Deal a few times and wandered happily with my camera amongst the boats, lurid nylon ropes and detritus and sheds ;-)

Ah, this resonates with me, Jane. I tend to panic when feeling that I MUST produce an idea, and I think my imaginative brain needs a bit of wandering. Does lying in a hot bath or in bed and just letting the mind wander count as wandering, even if the body isn't? That sort of wandering is also important to me.

Thanks, Jane. I also love the idea of cutting out random words from a magazine. But like Paeony says, without that notebook, I wouldn't remember the ideas when I got home. I've done it so many times, forgotten ideas I really like because of not writing them down soon enough (probably not great ideas, but who knows? I can't remember them -just that I thought they WERE great ideas). But I love getting ideas from unexpected places. I've just had an idea inspired by a paragraph in Slaughterhouse 5 of all places and a series of poignant photos I've just seen on the internet. Neither seems vaguely appropriate to picture books but it's given me my favourite idea I've had for a very long time. You're right that it often happens when you're not looking for it. But it's quite good to have your radar out...and recently I've not really been receptive to ideas. So tonight felt good! Happy scavenging.

It's taken me a long time to accept that this type of wandering is a crucial part of the writing process - after years working in an office, I am programmed to think I need to be sitting at a desk typing away to be 'working'. But I think I've finally got that I need to do a lot of meandering (in my case with a notebook!) in order to get the ideas flowing and the problems solved. And it's a much nicer and healthier way to work!